Blue
by meganechan720
Summary: U obediently walked over to his charging station, where Tony watched the small blond boy be suddenly confronted with the reality that he no longer had a power jack to hook into the wall socket. He stood there for three long seconds before turning to Tony, brown eyes wide and panicked. A bots-to-humans story.
1. Chapter 1

**Blue**

_U obediently walked over to his charging station, where Tony watched the small blond boy be suddenly confronted with the reality that he no longer had a power jack to hook into the wall socket. He stood there for three long seconds before turning to Tony, brown eyes wide and panicked._

A bots-to-humans story.

* * *

"No, no, no, like this. Tuh. Tuh. Tuh-ony."

The small child stared impassively back at him, mouth stretching in an exaggerated fashion as he attempted to imitate the sounds coming out of Tony Stark's mouth.

"Duh," he said.

"Tuh," Tony corrected. "Hear that puff of air? Tuh-ony."

"Tah," the child said. "Tah-ony."

"Closer," Tony said, smiling lopsidedly. "I think you're starting to get the hang of this whole having a mouth thing."

Another child tugged on the hem of his shirt, and he transferred his attention from the brown-haired child in front of him to the tow-headed one at his side.

"Oh, did you make that for me?" he said, accepting a small circuit board with a grin. The child made a wordless noise that sounded so heartbreakingly like U that Tony had to fight to keep the grin on his face. It still went flat and damn it he could feel his eyes pricking.

"Take five, guys," he said, and stood abruptly. The two children tracked his movements briefly, and then ignored him completely, moving to other parts of the workshop to do who the hell cared what.

Pepper was waiting for him on the other side of the large room.

"How's it going?" she asked, and he buried his head in her neck without speaking. She stroked the back of his neck a few times, and he spoke into her hair, voice muffled.

"They're still them," he said, "but…"

"But they're human too."

Tony leaned back and fixed Pepper with a lost expression that hurt her heart to look at.

"Pep, I can't do this. There's a reason I had that procedure, I'm not cut out to be a father—"

"You're doing fine, Tony. You're—you're doing fine." Pepper put her hand on the back of Tony's neck again, grounding him, even if she didn't sound so certain. "At least they're dressed now."

Tony chuckled thickly, glancing over as DUM-E (he was really going to have to find a better name for the poor kid) fumbled with the blender, which Tony had placed on the floor upon DUM-E having a complete meltdown at realizing he was no longer tall enough to reach it. He looked no older than six, a thick head of brown hair on his head over large brown eyes the same color as Tony's. The other child, U, had hair so blond it was nearly white, but his eyes were identical to DUM-E's. He was about an inch or two taller, though, and looked a little older. He was quietly sitting at a bench, soldering something together.

DUM-E, who was making his usual mess, was fully absorbed in his task and therefore did not look up even when a tall blond man walked over to him and spoke to him. He did, however, chirp and squeal in protest when Jarvis, now also in human form, a short-haired man with ice blue eyes, reached down and attempted to pull the blender away from him. The child hung on grimly, growling low in his chest, and when Jarvis succeeded in pulling the blender cup away from him, he tumbled over backwards and into the wall.

Tony and Pepper clutched each other, breathless, but before they could do anything, Jarvis had abandoned the cup and was kneeling down next to DUM-E, though he did not reach out to touch him automatically the way a human might. Tony watched, mute, as the man spoke soothingly but firmly to the child, but when Pepper hissed at him and pointed, he saw U making a beeline for the scene. When he reached his companion he extended a hand, lightly touching DUM-E's shoulder and then brushing up to the back of his head, where he had bumped it on the wall. He chirped questioningly, and DUM-E reached up in answer and lightly clutched U's hand with his fingers. Jarvis bowed his head and sighed.

Tony clutched Pepper's hand in his.

"_God_, Pepper…"

Pepper was crying.

* * *

Thor very generously ignored the weight of Tony's gaze on him as he placed his heavy hand on U's head. He had joined with the others in teasing him about his regard for his robots being that of a father for his children, but seeing them as actual human boys made him realize how much of the jest was rooted in truth. He did not blame Tony for being overprotective, though he hoped the man was not actually worried that he was going to hurt the child.

He closed his eyes to better concentrate, but it was as he suspected.

"There is no trace of Asgardian magic on the child," he said, opening his eyes and tousling U's hair gently before releasing him. Tony let out a breath that wasn't really relief, and nodded.

"Thanks, Thor," he said, both of them watching as U plucked lightly at the strap on Mjolnir, watching Thor out of the corner of his eye. DUM-E was outside with Jarvis and Pepper, U having been far more fascinated by the Asgardian than his counterpart. Thor smiled and gestured to his hammer.

"You may touch it as much as you wish, young one," he said. "The innocent have nothing to fear from Mjolnir."

U blinked silently at him, then turned back to the hammer and ran his hand slowly down the handle, eyes going distant as he concentrated on the texture, his expression changing minutely when his hands reached the hammer proper. Thor's smile softened, and he turned to Tony, seeking… he knew not what.

"They've never felt before," the other man explained, looking much older than Thor remembered from his last visit. "Sight, sure, they had cameras, but they've never had anything more sensitive than a couple of pressure sensors. Touching stuff just to see what it feels like is… new."

Thor turned his gaze back to the child, and wondered if, should turning them back end up being an option, they would wish to return to a world of metal and glass having experienced it with color and texture and smell.

"I wish you luck, my friend," he said, and Tony, not looking away from U, nodded.

* * *

Steve was trying his best to stay calm, but it wasn't easy. Kids had never really been his thing, though he had no problem with them on principle. Crying babies did make him nervous, but he'd always thought he would be fine with older children who could at least hold a conversation. Though he had never had the opportunity to test this theory, he had been pretty confident this morning in his ability to watch a kid for a few hours while its parents went out and have them come back to a clean, calm, uninjured household.

Watching DUM-E was making him rethink this hypothesis entirely.

"No, don't eat that!" he shouted, running over to the child, who in the space of three seconds' worth inattention had gotten almost ten yards away and was about to stick something—Steve couldn't tell at this distance, but it appeared that DUM-E had picked it up off the ground and that was grounds enough to want to take it away—in his mouth. The child froze with the handful of leaves in his hand halfway to his mouth, eyes wide and focused unblinkingly on Steve. Steve sighed in relief and pried the leaves out of DUM-E's hands.

"You can't put things in your mouth, D-DUM-E," he said, hesitant to call a human child by that name, and then, when DUM-E continued to stare at him intently, remembered what Tony had said about ambiguity: namely, that while DUM-E and U could handle much higher levels of it than normal computers, they still had problems with things being unclear, and while they were used to Tony and his hyperbole, they would react to strangers much more like typical programs.

"They will take you completely literally. _Completely_."

Tony had fixed him with a manic gaze that had Steve sweating until Pepper grabbed him by the collar and hauled him to their date, mouthing an apology to Steve on their way out. Steve stared down at the wide-eyed child next to him, and replayed his words in his mind. _You can't put things in your mouth_.

Oh.

"What I meant was, it's… not usually okay to… eat leaves. Or things you find on the ground. Unless it's supposed to be food. But even then you probably shouldn't eat it off the ground."

Oh, yeah. That was _much_ more clear.

DUM-E looked back down at the ground and picked up another handful of leaves, mouth pressed firmly closed. He flexed his fingers around the leaves, crunching them, holding his hand in a three-clawed configuration that Tony hadn't had the heart to try to train him out of. Then he held the handful out to Steve, making a questioning noise in the back of his throat. Tony claimed they were human analogues to the beeps and blips made by a computer with no voice protocols, but to Steve's ear it sounded like a child imitating a bird or a small animal. He held out his own hand, unsure of what DUM-E wanted. DUM-E ignored the hand and opened his mouth, angling his head up so that it was pointed away from the leaves.

"Co-lor," he said, voice flat and unmodulated, but unmistakably language. English.

"Color?" Steve repeated. DUM-E nodded, thrusting the hand at Steve again more urgently.

"Co-lor. What. Co-lor."

Steve had never heard a computer voice that wasn't Jarvis, so the flat, toneless quality to DUM-E's speech made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. But the look in his eyes was so earnest, and he was such a small, bony child, squatting there in the shade of a large hedge, that Steve thought he understood for the first time why Tony had fought Pepper on this night out so fiercely. He wouldn't want to leave this child alone either.

"What color are they?" he repeated again, but mostly as an acknowledgement of DUM-E's question. He looked down and picked one leaf out of the handful. "This is green," he said.

"Greeeeeen," DUM-E said.

"This one is yellow."

"Yallow."

"This one is brown."

"Buh-rown."

"Uh…" It was the middle of summer, so the only leaf color available was alive, dying and dead. But DUM-E had seemed so fascinated… "Do you want to learn more colors, DUM-E?"

The child made an encouraging noise, and dropped the handful of leaves, watching them flutter as they fell just as intently as he had repeated their names. Steve smiled at the unabashed concentration on DUM-E's face; he remarked to himself, not for the first time, that this child looked remarkably like Tony. In fact, out in the sunlight he could see reddish highlights in his hair, and his skin was pale like Pepper's. He looked so much like the theoretical child of Tony and Pepper that it was going to make Tony's plan of claiming they were adopted a little tricky, because standing next to his creator and his creator's girlfriend there was no way anyone would believe they weren't genetically related.

On the other side of the yard U screamed.

Steve's hackles, which had calmed down, stood straight up. The sound was almost inhuman, closer to the shriek of breaking metal than a child's voice. DUM-E stood bolt upright, staring intently in the direction of the noise. Steve picked him up in one smooth movement and began running toward the sound.

Bruce, who had volunteered to help in babysitting duty with a soft look in his eyes that no one had been able to misinterpret, was holding a sopping wet U, who was jerking and twitching and making pathetic chirping noises. DUM-E clutched at Steve, eyes wide.

"What happened?" Steve demanded. Bruce was taking off his coat and wrapping it around the child, mouth set firmly in his face.

"He fell in the fountain," he said shortly, and Steve noticed a shallow, decorative fountain behind Bruce that would be easy for an uncoordinated child to trip and fall into. He'd agreed to take the boys outside on the grounds that they stay in the backyard, but the backyard of Tony's massive brownstone was apparently still plenty full of pitfalls.

"Did he hit his head?"

"No. I'm pretty sure he's not injured. Just wet."

"Then why…"

Bruce fixed Steve with a look that contained multitudes, most of them tinged with sadness.

"He was a robot, Steve. You don't mix electronics and water. They could handle a few spills in the lab, but being completely submerged in water?"

Steve got it. He clutched DUM-E to him tighter, as U began to shiver uncontrollably. Bruce caught him as he collapsed, and Steve gave up hopes of ever being allowed to do this again.

* * *

When the bots had first become human, they had both walked around with one arm completely limp at their sides. It wasn't always the same arm, but they hadn't seemed able to figure out what to do with two independent limbs. Tony had gradually begun training them out of that, giving them tasks that required two hands, playing games that encouraged hand-eye coordination. They had both improved rapidly, and now used two hands on a regular basis.

DUM-E wiggled out of Steve's arms and ran up to Tony, one arm hanging at his side, and clutched at his t-shirt lightly with a three-clawed hand.

Tony looked like hell, but he still put his arm around DUM-E's shoulders, even though his eyes were trained on U, lying limp on the couch.

"I don't know what's wrong with him," Bruce was saying, posture hunched and hands rubbing each other. "He's not injured, and he didn't get cold enough to get hypothermia or anything. I don't—"

"Emergency shut down," Tony said tonelessly. "For when their circuits get overloaded or something goes catastrophically wrong."

He leaned over U, DUM-E keeping a delicate hold on Tony's clothes as he moved with him.

"Hey, U," Tony said, obviously trying to keep the panic out of his voice. Pepper hovered in the background, both hands over her mouth, eyes as wide as they could go. "You have to wake up now. Everything's fine. It was just a little water, buddy. You're fine."

U did not respond. Tony reached out, hesitated, and then placed a hand on U's light blond head, stroking his hair gently.

"U, buddy," he plead, voice wavering, stroking becoming more frantic. "Wake up, please. I need you to open your eyes and wake up now. You're fixed, everything is back to normal, just— U. Please. S-system restart—goddammit!"

He turned away, eyes bright, running his hand over his face two, three, four times. Steve found he was holding his breath.

"Isn't—isn't there something you can do?" he asked tentatively. Tony made an abortive motion with his hand.

"If he were still a robot I'd do a hard restart, just hit the big red button. But he doesn't have any big red buttons now, doesn't have any ports, any jacks, and if he can't hear me—"

He broke off, shaking his head. Steve reflected that he'd never seen Tony look so lost, not even after Coulson had died and the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist persona had been forcibly torn away. His eyes were focused on the air in front of him, hand held loosely over his mouth. DUM-E was staring at U with the same intensity he'd leveled at the leaves in Steve's hands, being told the names of their colors. After a long, heavy moment when Steve had to remind himself to breathe again, DUM-E released Tony's shirt and moved over to his—well, his brother, Steve supplied hysterically, never mind that they had been robots, they were _family_. He studied U for a long moment, and then reached out with his arm and bumped against U's shoulder with his three-clawed hand. Then he opened the claw, placed his fingers delicately around U's arm, and _squeezed_, hard enough, if Steve had to guess, to bruise.

U let out a squawk that sounded oddly more human than his scream had been earlier, and his eyes flew open. DUM-E let go, making low noises, and Tony leaned over his creation, tears tracking down his cheeks, appled and hard with smiling.

"U! It's okay, buddy, I've got you, I'm here. Daddy's here. You're okay, just a little scare, no damage, everything's working fine. You doing okay, buddy?"

U was staring at DUM-E, eyes holding a questioning note. DUM-E chirped something at him, and U reached out his hand. DUM-E brought his own up to meet it, and they touched clawed hands together delicately, comfortingly.

Tony let out a strangled sound and both boys turned to him, reaching to him with their other hands, tugging on his clothes and chirping at him. Heedless, he bundled them both up in his arms and held them close, ignoring their dissatisfied noises at being so roughly manhandled. Steve couldn't help the bark of relieved laughter that left his mouth, and he turned to Bruce, who was also smiling, a hard, small thing in the corner of his mouth, but for Bruce it was huge.

"You guys are terrible babysitters," Tony accused, and Steve had to agree.

No one noticed Pepper leaving the room.


	2. Chapter 2

"I don't believe I have what it takes, Master Stark," Jarvis said, sounding unusually serious. Tony rolled his eyes.

"I told you to quit it with the Master Stark bit. And you won't be alone. I just need someone with Bruce and Steve who know about the tech-y side of things so we don't have a repeat of last time."

Jarvis winced, and Tony tried to make himself remember that just because Jarvis hadn't turned out in a six-year-old's body didn't mean there wasn't plenty about this experience that was completely and terrifyingly new to him.

"Last time could be seen to be my fault in the first place, sir," he said quietly.

"How do you figure that?"

"I was… hesitant to go outside the house. I am not as… adventurous as DUM-E and U; I am… not adapting well to this change. But none of that is an excuse for failing in my duty. The fact is that I should have been there with them regardless of my personal feelings. I let my fears get in the way and U paid the price for it."

"Whoa, whoa, buddy, what's with the martyr complex all of a sudden?" Tony was legitimately surprised. His greatest creation, the AI that ran his house and the Iron Man suit and poked holes in Tony's ego when it was healthy for him to do so, had always seemed so on the level. He could understand being unsettled and off balance, suddenly finding himself in a human body with human limitations and human decisions to make, but to be this insecure…

"I am in charge of running the household; therefore I am in charge of DUM-E and U. I make sure they don't get into trouble; I keep them in line. To have discharged my duty simply because of the circumstances—"

"Jarvis," Tony cut in, and then sucked in a breath. He'd been meaning to say this for a while; he should have said it a lot sooner. "You're not… You're always welcome here, you know that. But you don't… _have_ to stay. You don't have to be my robo-butler if you don't want to. You're a human being now; you can do anything you want and I can't stop you."

The tall blond man on the other side of the workbench dropped the screwdriver he'd been toying with and went white as a sheet. His breathing quickened, and Tony was suddenly afraid he was going to pass out.

"You okay?"

"Take… take it back. Sir. Please. Take it back."

Jarvis had become something of a best friend to Tony: a confidant, a workshop buddy, as well as his intangible butler and main computer. But his original purpose, the thing that had driven Tony to sitting down at the keyboard and programming him in the first place, was to create someone who would take care of him, someone who would never leave him, someone unshakably loyal. He bit his lip now, looking at Jarvis writhing in an almost physical pain upon being told that his world could consist of more than Tony; no, that Tony did not have to be the _center_ of his world. Jarvis was boring into him with light blue eyes, eyes that were filling up with tears.

"I could not… _bear_ it, sir. Please."

"You don't have to leave, Jarvis," Tony murmured, and Jarvis relaxed, closing his eyes. "I'm just saying—"

"I understand, sir. But it will not be necessary. My place is here."

Tony swallowed, and nodded, but he knew this was going to prey on his mind for a long time.

* * *

"Okay, bedtime for little robots!"

It was the end of the first day. He was calling it quits early, at least half because he wanted to wake up in the morning and tell Jarvis all about the weird dream he'd had where he and the kids turned into humans. But also he was tired. Exhausted. He really, really just wanted to go to bed.

The small brown-haired boy ignored him entirely, but U—the blond kid was U, right?—immediately set down the pair of pliers he'd been learning how to work with human hands and walked over to his charging station. Tony bit his lip as he watched the little boy be suddenly confronted with the reality that he no longer had a power jack to hook into the wall socket. He stood there, immobile, for three long seconds, and then turned immediately to Tony, liquid brown eyes wide and panicked.

"Come with me," Tony said wearily, because that was just too fucking pathetic, and just imagining these two small boys down here alone, sitting in their old charging stations was enough to make him want to rip his own heart out. He held his arms out, and U walked over to him and stopped when he nudged the outside of Tony's forearms. Tony was the one who pulled him in close, held him tight, rubbed his shoulder.

"You, too, DUM-E," and he _really_ needed a better name, but at least DUM-E looked up from fiddling with a microwave Tony had found for him to take apart. "Come on, it's time for good little robots to be in bed. You're with me."

DUM-E drooped in a way that was far too familiar, but he followed his brother and was soon enfolded in Tony's arms as well. He looked back up at the blond man sitting quietly at a workstation, scrolling through code. The man looked up from where he'd been engrossed, smiled. Said, "Good night, sir," and hunched back down over the display.

No.

"You too, Jarvis," Tony called, because. Just. No.

Jarvis looked up again, blinking uncomprehendingly, and Tony jerked his chin.

"It's bedtime for you, too. Come on."

Understanding, followed by a frown.

"Sir, I—"

"No arguing. What, did turning human make you more of a pain than these two?" He jostled DUM-E and U fondly, but something like pain flashed across Jarvis' face. Tony sighed. He already felt decades older than he had this morning, and he had a feeling it was only going to get worse. "Come to bed, Jarvis. You're human now. You need things like sleep. I know I'm playing the hypocrite here, but it's late and we've all had a long day, and I'm not leaving you down here alone."

Jarvis studied him for a long moment. U chirped at him, and Tony didn't know what he'd said (if he'd actually said anything at all) but Jarvis' face softened, and he stood stiffly.

"If you insist, sir," he said, coming to join them.

Tony was glad his bed was as big as it was; the only real problem here was going to be convincing Pepper.

And maybe getting DUM-E and U to brush their teeth.

Yikes. Maybe tomorrow.

Tony could just _feel_ himself going gray, see if he wasn't.


	3. Chapter 3

"Blue," said Steve.

"Buh-lue," DUM-E repeated.

"What else can you find that's blue?" Steve asked. They'd gone through all the colors in the inane children's book that nevertheless had vibrant, pretty colors in clean, precise shapes, and he felt that a nice quiet game of color scavenger hunt (indoors, of course) was now in order. DUM-E looked around, head rotating on his neck in a comically jerky sort of way, reminiscent of a robot arm moving a camera up and over and around, taking in the environment.

DUM-E turned back to Steve and shook his head. Steve raised his eyebrows.

"You can't find anything that's blue?"

DUM-E shook his head again, the movement as identical to the previous one as human anatomy allowed for. Steve was at a loss. He could pick out at least five different things around the room that were blue. Heck, his eyes were blue.

"Are you sure?" he asked. DUM-E nodded. "I can see lots of blue things, DUM-E. Like that pillow on the couch." He pointed, and DUM-E tracked the movement. When he saw the pillow Steve was indicating he made a displeased noise and shook his head. Steve couldn't help but laugh. "That's blue, buddy, I promise."

DUM-E grabbed the color book from Steve and opened it to the page that showed a large blue square. Then he hopped down from his little chair and padded over to the pillow, and held the book up next to it, easily comparing the two objects. He shook his head.

Steve followed, slowly. Both were definitely blue, but… Ah.

"The pillow is a darker shade of blue, but it's still blue." He was impressed. The difference in the two colors wasn't that pronounced. "See that vase up there? It's also blue."

DUM-E swiveled his head around quickly, tracking objects around the room.

"Buh-lue?" he said, pointing to a bottle of alcohol that definitely had a blue label.

"Yes, that's right."

"Buh-lue?" he said again, pointing to… another bottle. Also blue. Steve rubbed his forehead.

"Yes. Blue. Can you find something non-alcoholic that's blue?"

DUM-E made a thoughtful noise and continued looking. He stopped when his search took him past Steve's face.

"Buh-lue," he said, bringing his hand up to point delicately at Steve's left eye.

"That's right. My eyes are blue."

The child appeared to think for a moment, and then turned his fingers inward, indicating his own eye.

"Buh-lue?" he asked.

"No, your eyes are brown. Want to see?"

DUM-E nodded, so Steve took him over to the wet bar, the nearest place with a mirror. He hoisted the small boy up to stand on the counter.

"See? Your eyes are brown, DUM-E."

DUM-E stared hard at his reflection, eyes ticking over to glance at Steve and then ticking back rapidly to stare at himself. Slowly he brought up one arm and delicately (he always used such care when touching things, as though afraid of breaking them; Steve supposed that came from his beginnings as a powerful robot arm capable of holding heavy machinery in place) bumped his fingers against the glass. There was such intense concentration in his eyes that he wondered if DUM-E had looked in a mirror since his transformation.

Steve must have gotten lost in his thoughts as they stood there, because without any warning that he could see DUM-E raised his arm and smacked the mirror with as much force as he could muster. It didn't break, but it did crack, and the small boy squealed in displeasure, flailing his limbs and trying to hit the mirror again. Steve caught his wrists, trying not to panic himself, and found that tears were streaming down DUM-E's face, which was bright red with rage. He took in a deep breath and screamed, and Steve thought he'd better get him down off the counter and back to Tony.

* * *

DUM-E was still screaming when Steve carried him down to the workshop. He'd stopped flailing but he was rigid in his arms and did not let up or relax until he saw Tony, at which point he jerked so violently to get away from Steve that Steve nearly dropped him.

"What happened?" Tony demanded, striding over. Steve gently set the boy down on the floor, where he scrambled upright and shot over to Tony, clinging to the hem of his shirt and burying his face in Tony's side. Pepper, who looked subdued, stood up from the low chair she'd been sitting in while talking to Tony and quietly slipped out of the room. Steve noted her passage and rubbed his face.

"Steve, what the hell?"

"I don't know, I—We were just going over colors and then he wanted to see himself in a mirror. So we did. And I guess he didn't like it? He kind of cracked it, the one over the bar."

Tony gave him one incredulous look, and then ignored him in favor of DUM-E.

"Hey, there, kiddo, what's got you all upset, huh? Come on, you're good, you're okay, tell me what's wrong?"

DUM-E's only response was to bury his head deeper in Tony's side. Tony sighed.

"Well, it's okay, just leave him down here with me."

"I'm really sorry—"

"Hey, it—happened, you know?" Tony gave him a tight smile that neither of them believed, but Steve nodded after a moment and went back upstairs. Tony looked down at the small boy at his side and rubbed his shoulder.

"Howard, I take it all back," he muttered to himself. "I don't know what the hell I'm doing either."

* * *

Three weeks after the change and two days after U's incident with the fountain, but before DUM-E's meltdown, Natasha and Clint sat down with Tony, their grim faces all the answer he needed. But he asked anyway.

"Well?"

"It's permanent," Natasha said, as merciless and quick as a shot of lithium oxide to the neck. Tony drew in a deep breath, and then let it out.

"Okay," he said, and stood, walking out of the room. The two spies exchanged a look, but then a small, naked boy of about seven or eight ran into the room through a different door than the one Tony had disappeared into.

"Get back here, U!" Pepper shrieked, chasing him down with a towel. "I know you don't want to take a bath, but you have to at least get clean. I'm not letting you go another day without a wash!"

Natasha snagged the child as he ran past her, and then looked oddly at a loss. U struggled, wiggling with his whole body to get out of her grip, and Pepper collapsed into the chair across from them.

"I know I compare Tony to a toddler a lot," she said, "But I take it all back. At least he can dress himself."

Natasha held the small boy at arm's length, as though handling a bomb, and Clint laughed.

"Here, I'll see what I can do."

He scooped him up from Natasha's grasp, and then threw him in the air.

"Hey, there, kiddo! It's your old Uncle Clint, come to play."

U went still, looking up at Clint with large eyes.

"Circus brat, huh?" he said in a fair imitation of Tony's voice, considering his vocal cords were all wrong for the job, "Let's see if there's pictures of that."

"Oh, brother," Clint said, laughing and rolling his eyes. "Come on, kid, let's go find you some clothes."

When Clint had gone, Pepper turned her gaze on Natasha.

"I can't do this," she whispered. Natasha gazed at her steadily.

"Which part of it?"

"The kids, Nat." Pepper sounded close to tears. "I can't… They're so… broken and fragile. U almost died because he fell in some water and got scared. I can't handle that. Part of the reason Tony and I worked so well is because we both knew we were never going to have kids, but now…" She took in a deep breath and straightened, meeting Natasha's eyes. "Tell me they have a way to fix this."

Natasha studied the woman in front of her, and then shook her head slowly.

"We came to tell Tony there's no way to reverse it."

Pepper leaned forward and buried her face in her hands.

"Then I can't…"

Pepper didn't finish the sentence, but Natasha had a fair guess as to how it supposed to end anyway.

* * *

Tony sat down on a stool, DUM-E's head buried in his lap, and flicked a holographic schematic around until it skittered out of his reach. Then he sighed.

"Pepper's gonna leave me," he said to no one. There was no one to talk to, anymore. Jarvis wasn't there, U was upstairs with Bruce, and DUM-E was nonresponsive and he had no idea why. "She didn't say as much, but I'm the master of avoidance, I know when someone's doing it to me. And I'm still trying to figure out how not to have that conversation because I hate talking about heavy stuff, even though I know full well that if I push it off long enough she's just gonna leave without even saying goodbye, even though Pepper's not the type, because I bring out the worst in people."

He placed a heavy hand on DUM-E's head, ruffling his hair slightly. He sat in that posture for a long time, and then spoke again.

"I'm gonna try to do right by you guys, but I can't make any guarantees, okay? I'm a terrible person. I'd make an even more terrible father. But Lord help me I'm gonna try because if I don't even try then what's the point? Does that even make any fucking sense? I bet you're not even listening to me. I don't blame you. I think you traumatized Steve, he looked like he wanted to cry. What was up with that anyway? You've looked at yourself in the mirror before."

"No," DUM-E said, and Tony stilled.

"Yes, you have," he negated, feeling like his mouth was running on autopilot. "I showed it to you the first day, remember?"

"No," DUM-E repeated. "No buh-rown eyes, no buh-rown hair, no two arms, no. System restore to puh-revious suh-peh-cifications. Puh-lease. Tuh-ony. Puh-lease."

It felt like the shrapnel had finally made its way to his heart because that was fucking painful. He allowed himself one moment for the grief to show on his face before gathering up the tiny child in his arms and setting him on the worktable in front of him, looking him in the eye.

"DUM-E, I would in a heartbeat but I can't. There's no way to put you back. You're… you're a human now, for better or worse, but I'm going to be here to take care of you, you and your brother, okay? I know it's hard but you'll get used to it, I promise. I—"

His words stuttered out as tears spilled out of DUM-E's eyes and his breathing sped up.

"Oh, DUM-E," Tony breathed, pulling him in close. "It'll be okay. I promise. It'll be okay."

His mouth kept making empty promises as the little boy in his arms shook and whimpered and did not cling back.

* * *

"It's the kids, isn't it," Tony said, hands in pockets. Pepper looked up from her salad and fixed him with that stern look of hers that he might not end up missing, when all was said and done.

"What's the kids, Tony?" she asked, setting down her fork. He felt bad ambushing her during her lunch, but she _had_ been avoiding him. (Of course, he'd been avoiding her too, but...)

"It's okay. You can say it. I'm prepared."

And he was. He had walked himself through this scenario many times over the past few days. He was not going to act badly. This would be a cordial breakup. He would even still let her run his company after it was over, if she wanted to. Pepper stared at him for a long moment, as though weighing something in her mind, and then looked away.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said. He rolled his eyes.

"Oh, come on, Pepper, don't do this to me."

"Don't do what to you, Tony?"

"Draw this out. If you're gonna stay, then great, but if you've already decided to leave, then just do it already."

Pepper's face did that thing where he couldn't tell if she was going to burst into tears or fly into a rage.

"Excuse me?" she demanded in a low, wobbly voice. Oh, fuck, she was going to cry, and if she started crying then he was the bad guy, regardless of who was breaking up with who. But right at that moment Tony didn't give a flying fuck, because who did she think she was, crying when she was the one who wanted to leave?

"You heard me. You're doing that thing you did back when you almost quit the third time, you're being all nice and reasonable and putting up with my shit—"

"I've been putting up with your shit for the last ten years, Tony, don't you dare—"

"—and it means you're thinking about leaving. Well, don't stay on my account. If you want to leave, then vamoose."

He gestured grandly to the door, which opened to reveal Bruce. The scientist blinked once, twice, and then turned around went back out the way he'd come, expression never changing. Tony sighed and rubbed his right eye.

"Are you really breaking up with me?" Pepper asked in a level tone, though it was still a little rougher than her normal voice.

"I'm trying to tell you that _you_ can break up with _me_, if that is, in fact, what you're planning to do. And I think it is. You—" He turned to her, eyes sincere. "Pepper, I know you never wanted kids. And—and neither did I, but now I have two, and I know it's hard on you, and, and—"

"And you don't think I can do it," Pepper finished.

"No! I think you'd make a great mother. You just… don't seem to want to be."

They stared at each other, Tony desperately hoping, one last time, that he'd been mistaken; the look in Pepper's eyes telling him that he hadn't been.

"I was still thinking about it," she said finally. "I hadn't decided yet."

Tony nodded once, twice. Yes, okay. He could be reasonable about this.

"How long do you need?" he asked.

"I was going to take a vacation."

"You do that. You deserve it, you do everything around here, run my company, run my life, run after small children. Take a week off. Take two."

"I was thinking about Venice."

"Venice is nice this time of year."

"You don't even know where Venice is."

"It's in… France."

"It's in Italy."

They both laughed, painful chuckles that hurt their ears.

"I'm serious, Pep. Take as much time as you need. You've had a lot dumped on you all at once."

"So have you," she said, looking like the admission cost her. He nodded in acknowledgement, turned to go, and then spun back around.

"If it's… if it is about the kids…" and the look on her face said it was, "then you don't… you don't have to be their mother. You're not their mother. I mean, I basically am their father, but you shouldn't have motherhood forced on you out of the blue without signing up for it first."

"Tony, if I stay with you, I will have to be their mother."

"No, you really don't. They have like a million babysitters and godparents; Bruce and Steve watch them all the time—"

"Bruce and Steve didn't sign up for motherhood either. And that's…" Pepper gestured vaguely. "That's not really what I meant, Tony. We could hire a nanny if I thought that would help, but if I stay on, if I stay with you, I'm going to get attached, and I can't… I can't get attached to kids, Tony, I can't do that."

"What…?" Pepper was nearly crying again, and Tony was bewildered. They had never talked about the reasons behind not wanting to be parents; Tony had felt his own daddy-issues were so laughably obvious as to be common knowledge, and she had indicated, though not in so many words, that it was her busy schedule and a general lack of confidence that stood in the way. Pepper gulped down a breath and gestured to the couch. Tony beat her there, and watched, concerned, as she sat gingerly down next to him.

"I should have told you this a long time ago, Tony. Do you remember Mike? No, of course you don't remember Mike, you barely knew my name back then."

Tony remembered Mike. He had been The Boyfriend right when Pepper had first come on, and when she had stopped chattering about him he figured she had realized he wasn't interested in hearing about such things and had stopped. It had been a few years before he realized she must have broken up with him at some point, but by then it had been too late to ask about it.

"Mike had a daughter from a previous relationship, and he only had partial custody, so I hardly ever saw her, but he talked about her all the time, and I was willing to be a part of her life. She was about four years old, and she was the sweetest little girl. She always called me Ginny, after the Harry Potter character, and Mike doted on her terribly.

"Her mom, though… Mike told me she was a little unstable, but we didn't know… One week she didn't show up to drop her off, and when we went to the house, they were both gone. We put out a missing persons, and two weeks later they found them, frozen to death in an old log cabin that her father had owned."

Pepper swallowed, and Tony reached for her hand, rubbing it with his thumb over and over.

"I didn't expect to be that _devastated_. Mike was distraught, of course, but I felt like I had the breath knocked out of me all the time. She was just a little girl, and I only saw her maybe eight times total, but I just…"

Tony pulled her into the circle of his arms and she laid her head on his shoulder, gripping his hand.

"Mike got over it faster than I did. We never said so, but that was basically why we broke up. I still think about her sometimes, wonder what it would be like if she'd lived, what she would be like now. She'd be about fifteen, I think. In high school. Tony, I can't… I can't _do _that again."

Tony did not say, 'you won't have to.' He did her that favor. But he did say, when her breathing had mostly calmed down,

"You and I are going to do everything we can to make sure you don't have to. You know that."

Pepper did not say anything, but she gripped his hand tighter. After a long, somewhat peaceful moment, Tony said,

"You should still take that vacation."

"Of course."

"Get out of New York, get some sun, drink Italian coffee. Sleep in."

"Tony, I _want_ to—"

"Don't. Don't say anything until you get back. Think about it. Decide. Two kids is a lot to spring on you all at once."

"You're forgetting Jarvis."

"He doesn't run around naked."

Pepper laughed, and Tony felt that traitor, hope, uncurl itself in his chest.


	4. Chapter 4

"What are you going to tell people?" Steve murmured to Tony as they both watched U raise his arms obediently while DUM-E wiggled and squirmed and made disapproving noises. The tailor assigned to U slipped the measuring tape easily around his torso and carefully did not make eye contact with his harried assistant.

"Fury's pulling some strings, getting adoption papers and false backgrounds drawn up."

He was staring intently at the two boys, but Steve knew he was really avoiding eye contact.

"I meant more about… their behavior. It's… noticeable."

"Abuse," Tony said quickly, easily, still not looking at Steve. His expression did not change at all. "Neglect. Criminal levels of neglect. It's—" He chuckled darkly, "That part's practically true."

"Tony," Steve murmured disapprovingly, but Tony stepped forward to reason with DUM-E as U, already finished with his measurements, accepted the measuring tape from the tailor to study, drawing it through his hands carefully.

"Sleeve length 14 inches," he recited, to the tailor's surprise, "Waist 19 inches. Inseam 20 inches. Chest diameter 21 inches."

"He's a smart kid," the man said to Tony, standing up and finally coming to his assistant's rescue when DUM-E squealed and yanked the tape measure out of her hands. Tony ignored him and addressed DUM-E calmly.

"Listen, kid, you've seen me complain about getting fitted enough times, I understand. But it's a necessary evil. Just hold your arms out—look, U-your brother is already done. Quick and painless. And then you can go back to playing with Steve."

"Buh-lue," DUM-E said, looking at Tony suspiciously, as though trying to see the catch. "Greeeeen. Redd."

"Yes. Blue green red and all the other colors too. You just have to get measured first."

DUM-E continued to stare, but when U came over and laid his fingers gently on his shoulder, he drooped in defeat.

"Thatta boy. It'll be over before you know it."

Tony gave him a quick pat on the other shoulder, and then stood up and let the tailor throw the tape around DUM-E as quickly as he could, his assistant seemingly grateful to be simply recording numbers. Steve smiled when DUM-E tumbled into his arms upon being released from his torture, and Tony talked with the tailors for a few minutes before joining them on the couch, sighing deeply. U hopped up on the couch on Tony's other side, making a Steve-DUM-E-Tony-U pattern. DUM-E looked up from the hexadecimal color chart he'd been going over with Steve and chirruped a question.

"'He's a smart kid'," Tony repeated disdainfully. "I always hated it when people said that to me, you know why?" DUM-E and U both shook their heads. "Because I could tell what they really meant, and that was that either I was being a good little boy and they could care less about how intelligent I was, or they meant I was a little hellion who was too smart for my own good. The only adult who ever said that to me and didn't mean either of those things was my father, and I could tell what _he_ really meant was that I wasn't smart_ enough_."

Tony looked down at the children beside him, and Steve couldn't help but feel like he was intruding, but getting up to leave would break the moment, and besides, surely Tony knew perfectly well he was still there. Tony considered each of the boys for a long moment, and then spoke again.

"Wanna know the other reason I hated it when people said that?" Both boys had their eyes locked on Tony's face. "I always wanted to ask them, 'Well, what if I'd been born dumb? What then?' I already knew that who I was didn't mean a damn thing to those people, just what I could do for their stock when dear old dad kicked the bucket and I took over. They looked at me like I was a piece of meat, and that didn't change when I grew up. But it was worse when I was young because I didn't understand that what they thought didn't have to matter to me."

Tony put his arms around his—his sons, Steve thought, letting that thought settle in his mind for a minute, because _wow_—and looked them both in the eye by turns.

"It matters how you act in public because it can affect your stock and it can make things easier or harder for you in life. But it never has to matter _here_." Tony tapped the boys right in the center of their chests. They both followed his movement, but while DUM-E frowned at Tony's finger resting on his sternum, U immediately shifted and brought his own finger up gingerly to rest on Tony's arc reactor, invisible through his thick shirt. DUM-E lifted his head at the movement, scrambling up to sit on Tony's lap, and attempted to lift up his shirt to get a better look. Tony laughed and brought it up, and DUM-E placed his fingers against the metal, looking rapidly between it and Tony's eyes. His expression went somber.

"Yeah, you're remembering, aren't you," he said, and DUM-E made a distressed noise in the back of his throat. U climbed up to join his brother and carefully placed his palm flat against the reactor, trapping DUM-E's hand there. The boys looked at each other, murmuring to each other softly in tones and beeps, and Tony ran his hands up and down both of their backs, eyes doing that faraway thing that Steve had slowly learned meant Tony's heart was doing acrobatics and he knew he couldn't show it on his face.

After a moment Tony turned to look at him, eyes a little closer and smiling gently.

"That all goes for you too, you know," he said, and Steve had to chuckle at that, because the only time he'd ever had to dance for a crowd had been the worst six months of his life and he'd run away from it as soon as he could. He couldn't care less what a bunch of idiots thought of him, though he did understand the importance of public image. But he hadn't been _raised_ for it, hadn't ever been confused about the difference between ass-kissers and real friends. Watching Tony give such advice to his sons was bruising enough, but seeing how far he had come to get there…

"Yeah," he said, "I know."

* * *

Tony explained to Steve in the car that he didn't normally attend functions like these unless there was a specific reason to, usually because their stock needed the boost or Pepper wanted a date without the guilt of feeling like she was actually taking time away from work. It was important to remember what this particular charity ball was for so you didn't look like an ass while you made small talk, but their real purpose tonight was to introduce DUM-E and U to society.

"Remember, DUM-E is Alexander, we call him Alex, Xander is a stupid name, and U is David, we call him Davie. We don't know much about how they were treated before I took them in, but they're very fixated on robots, specifically my robots, and I heard about them through Pepper, who is missing out on all the fun here in New York while she gets pampered as she definitely deserves over in France. Italy. Venice."

"Tony," Steve said patiently, because he knew very well why Pepper was on vacation even if no one had said anything, and because Tony's nerves were staring to draw the attention of the two—of Alex and Davie. Currently they were running up and down the length of the limousine they were riding in. Bruce had begged off attending by claiming crowds made the Other Guy nervous, but Tony's jab at Bruce using the Other Guy as an excuse to be a shut-in had hit truer than he'd meant. Bruce had still stayed home.

"I know, I know. I've never done this before. I don't even remember my first function; by the time I was their age I'd been going to these things all my life."

Steve didn't ask, _Are you sure this is a good idea?_ because Tony looked unsure enough already, and he had been planning this for weeks, ever since they'd been told the boys' condition was permanent. If he was going to be the father of two boys, then he was damn well going to do it right, and for a Stark that meant getting them used to the crowds and the attention as soon as possible.

Besides, as Tony had reminded Steve—and himself, Steve thought—technically DUM-E and U were much older than six and eight, their official ages on their brand new paperwork. He'd first built DUM-E in college, making him closer to 30 than Steve was. U was actually DUM-E's younger brother, but he'd been the intermediary step between DUM-E and Jarvis, and was therefore more complex in his programming. DUM-E, Tony had admitted, had been a fluke, an experiment, a dare. Artificial intelligence was on everyone's minds back in the eighties, and Tony had taken the assertion by one of his college professors that it was impossible as a challenge. His first iterations had been simple, and definitely would not have passed the Turing test, which Steve had just quietly looked up on his phone rather than have Tony explain. He'd been upgraded many times, but he was really just a useful relic, a prototype Tony kept around mainly as a 'fuck you' to people who said he couldn't do the impossible.

Tony still wasn't sure the kid could pass the Turing test, but he'd muttered that under his breath so Steve hadn't commented.

For the first half hour the boys trailed after Tony like ducklings, being introduced over and over again, shaking hands and saying the script Tony had made them memorize: "Nice to meet you, my name is David Stark, how are you this evening?" DU- Alexander usually only made it as far as "Nice to meetchu" before he got shy and stopped talking, occasionally outright burying his head in Tony's side if he was feeling particularly overwhelmed, but Davie would sometimes improvise a little— "You're very pretty, lady," or, "Gosh, that suit looks expensive,"— which would make everyone laugh and coo over the charming boy and isn't he adjusting so well, because Davie always said everything with such a serious look on his face that it was impossible not to be utterly charmed by him.

Steve was probably not the only one who caught the pain under Tony's smile when he told people how proud he was of them, but if he wasn't, certainly no one else commented on it.

After half an hour the novelty of Steve's presence as Captain America (ostensibly to show support for the noble cause they were all there for, but really to draw some attention off Davie and Alexander) wore off somewhat and he could reconnect with Tony and the boys.

"Steve!" Alex said when he saw him approaching. Tony was deep in conversation with a woman in a slinky dress and her date, an older man who had to be pushing eighty and who was more interested in his date's boobs than conversation, but at Alex's cry all three of them looked over, the woman smiling fakely and the man blinking a few times before going back to being somewhat disbelieving of his luck. Steve scooped the child up and nodded to the man, the woman, and then to Tony.

"Do you mind if I steal him for a while?" he asked, and Tony flapped a hand, though his face was a little more pinched than usual and Steve tried not to laugh at the sight of Tony Stark being a worried mother.

"Maybe try to find Davie?" he said. "He's with Happy, wherever he is, but I don't know where they got to."

Steve nodded again, and wandered off with Alex, who was cooing under his breath, having been told not to beep or chirp in public but obviously too wired not to.

"Are you having a good time, Alex?" Steve asked as he carried the boy on his hip, feeling a little ridiculous doing so in a ridiculously expensive suit at a fancy party that had a bar instead of a buffet table and live music instead of piped. Truth be told he wasn't the only one glad for a familiar face.

"Nice to meetchu," Alex murmured unhappily, and Steve chuckled.

"It's like being a trained monkey, isn't it?" he murmured back. Alex did not answer this. Steve caught sight of one of Tony's many bodyguards and flagged him down.

"Hey, Mick, have you seen Happy anywhere?"

"I can check," he said, putting a hand to his ear and murmuring into his lapel. Steve jostled Alex as they waited, and Alex retaliated by pulling gently on his ear. Carter lifted his head after a moment and nodded in the direction of the band. "He's over that way."

"Thanks," Steve said, bracing himself to begin wading through the crowd.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the master of ceremonies said over the PA system, "we have a special treat for you tonight. In honor of the work of the great Dr. Kidman, who has worked tirelessly over the past three decades to provide shelter, education, and support for homeless and disadvantaged boys, some of his current and former students have formed a men's choir, and we will be very privileged to hear from them tonight. I give you… the Kidman Choir!"

Everyone clapped, and the lights dimmed except around the front of the room which was being gradually lit up, revealing a small choir composed of men and boys of almost every age. Steve gave up on trying to find Davie, and just whispered to Alex to hold still and watch. The choir began, conducted by a boy that looked no older than seventeen, and they were certainly very good, though Steve was not a huge fan of this type of music. Alex wiggled but stayed quiet all the way through the first number. Then they began a second song, much more somber than the first, and Alex whispered to Steve,

"U."

"What?"

"U. Find U. Day-vee. Find. Puh-lease."

Steve sighed, but figured he could go around the crowd rather than try to wade through it. He nodded to Mick, who had stayed close by, and made it as far as the bar before running into Tony, who looked relieved to see them.

"Hey, how's my boy?" he asked wearily, though his smile was genuine. Steve transferred Alex to his father's arms and sat down next to them. "Where's Davie?" Tony whispered when he had Alex situated.

"We didn't make it that far. Mick said he and Happy were over by the stage; I figure we'll try to find them after the music stops."

Tony nodded, but didn't look especially pleased by this. Alex continued to fidget and both men could tell his patience was running thin.

"Find Day-vee," he insisted a little louder, and Tony hissed, "Fine, fine, just be quiet. Steve—"

Steve wasn't sure if Tony was going to tell him to go find Davie or take Alex while he went to look, but it ended up being moot because Happy emerged from the crowd right then, Davie pulling him along. Tony transferred Alex to Steve smoothly and made to stand, but when Davie caught sight of them he let go of Happy's hand and ran up to Tony, eyes wide with excitement.

"Music!" he cried, softly but intently, "Music! What. Music?"

"Hey, there U," Tony said, pulling him into his lap and sounding relieved. "You liking the music?"

"What. Band," U demanded. He tended not to make his own sentences, opting instead to quote things he had heard, snatches of conversation or lines from movies, if he spoke at all. But there was such sheer delight on his face, evident even without a smile (neither of the boys ever smiled; Tony said they probably didn't know how or see a need to) that he seemed to feel the occasion warranted his own words.

"They're called the Kidman Choir," Tony told him, studying the boy closely.

"Kidman Choir," Davie repeated, and then wriggled his way to an empty bar stool and stood on it to better see the singers. Tony licked his lips, hands reaching out vaguely, but when he looked around the bartender was smiling and everyone else had their backs to them. He retracted his hands and settled for watching the boy intently from the corner of his eye. Happy settled next to them, looking longingly at the bar but eventually turning to stand on Davie's other side, keeping an eye on him as well.

"Day-vee," Alex whispered. "Day-vee."

"Shh, Alex," Steve told him. Alex ignored him and crawled from Steve's lap into Tony's, the better to reach his brother's pant leg and tug.

"Day-vee!" he said in a loud whisper, and Davie lost his balance and nearly fell over. Tony and Happy both moved so fast they ended up with a sort of Davie sandwich, the boy squished between them as they both tried to catch him; Alex nearly tumbling to the ground if not for Steve's reflexes. There was a breathless moment where everyone stood frozen in a tableau, trying to process what had just happened. Steve moved first, clutching DUM-E to him in an attempt to muffle the scream he knew was coming.

"Come on," Tony said, scooping up Davie and striding toward the exit. U wiggled in his father's arms, muttering, "Music. Music!" over and over while DUM-E screamed into Steve's lapel. Steve ignored the looks they got leaving the party, but Tony waved and apologized the whole way, eyes tight.

When they made it to the limo Tony collapsed in his seat and sighed.

DUM-E was no longer screaming, but his face was red and he was still curled up in Steve's arms, having refused to be set down. U was sitting stiffly a few seats away from the rest of them, frowning deeply.

"Davie," Tony began, but the boy turned his frown on him and said,

"U."

Tony blinked.

"Davie, I'm—"

"U," the boy repeated more forcefully. "Designation U."

Patiently, very patiently, Tony began,

"I know, but your name is Davie now."

U turned away and did not look at anyone. Tony sighed and sat back, obviously giving up for now. Steve felt DUM-E wiggling and let him down to make his way over to his brother. U ignored him completely right up until DUM-E tugged on his sleeve, and then he shoved his arm away and hissed,

"I'm donating you to a city college!"

DUM-E eyes went comically wide. Then he threw his head back and screamed, loud enough to hurt everyone's ears in the enclosed space.

"DUM-E!" Tony said, kneeling down next to him and putting an arm around his shoulders. Then he turned to U.

"Davie, apologize to your brother."

U ignored him.

"Davie!" Tony said, but U was still ignoring him and DUM-E was still screaming and all Tony could think about was getting his hands on a bottle of scotch and curling up in his bed while someone else took care of this shit.

He took a deep breath and let it out.

"DUM-E!" he said, loud enough to pierce the screaming. DUM-E hiccupped and looked up at him. "Thank you, buddy, I'd really rather not go deaf before my time, yeah? I know your brother was mean to you, but that doesn't mean you get to scream about it. Okay? No more screaming."

DUM-E stared at him with large, tear-stained eyes, and then leaned his head on Tony's chest wearily. Tony stroked his hair a few times before telling him,

"I'm going to talk to your brother now, you go sit with Steve, okay?"

DUM-E went quietly, resting his head on Steve's chest and closing his eyes. Steve watched as Tony knelt in front of U, taking his hands in his. U was still looking away, but he let his hands be swallowed up in Tony's larger ones.

"U, I know you were frustrated having to leave early, but that's no excuse for saying something like that to your brother. I know I used to say it all the time, but that wasn't very nice of me either, so I'm sorry to both of you. Now can you apologize to your brother?"

"Music," U said mournfully.

"We can listen to music when we get home."

"No," U shook his head, frowning. "Kidman Choir."

"We'll find some of their music. Now go apologize to DUM-E."

U ducked his head, tucking his chin tightly against his chest, but Tony stood his ground, and eventually U got up and sat next to Steve, gently touching DUM-E's shoulder with his hand and chirping softly. DUM-E shifted and beeped lowly, but he was clearly already asleep.

"Thanks, U," Tony said, taking his seat again and opening his arms for U, who tumbled into them gratefully and curled up as tightly as his brother. Both boys were asleep before they got home.

* * *

A few days later Tony was on the couch with Steve and Bruce, Clint settled back in an armchair watching amusedly as the soldier and the biophysicist argued about scientific ethics and tried to pretend their opinions weren't fantastically influenced by their own personal experiences. Tony was watching with dark eyes that gave little away.

"I just don't understand why it's such a big deal. I gave consent. I was willing to do whatever it took, and they knew that. It didn't matter if I knew what was going on or not."

"That's just the problem, Steve. You _didn't_ know what they were doing, and so you couldn't, by definition, give informed consent. They could have done anything to you, anything at all, and you would have had no way to object."

"Why would I have objected? I trusted Dr. Erskine; I knew he wouldn't be asking me to do anything really dangerous or harmful. They needed a subject and I was willing to be one. I understand why informed consent is a good thing, but I don't think in my case it really mattered."

Bruce ran a frustrated hand through his curls. They'd been going around like this nearly half an hour. The discussion had begun over DUM-E and U's situation, but it had quickly devolved into a circular argument and Bruce looked like he was losing his patience. Not to Hulk levels, Tony knew, but possibly to yelling-at-Steve levels. He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by DUM-E running full-tilt into the room.

"Tah-ony!" he shouted, tripping over the rug in the middle of the sitting area and nearly falling flat on his face. Clint reached out and caught him neatly by his shirt, pulling him upright. DUM-E flailed, but his attention was entirely on Tony, eyes impossibly wide. "Tah-ony! Come! U, Jarvis, come, Tah-ony, Jarvis, _Jarvis_!"

Tony was on his feet and striding toward the door DUM-E had come through before the boy had even caught his balance. He'd never seen DUM-E look so scared, so pale white and breathing hard. Jarvis had been watching the boys, his enthusiasm for doing so today unusual and forced-seeming. The man had been melancholy ever since his conversation with Tony, but he had refused to talk about it and Tony had let himself be fobbed off on the kids without giving it too much thought. He wondered now if he should have paid the situation more attention.

He followed the sounds of voices coming from U's bedroom, and slowed his approach so he could hear what was being said.

"Please, U, I know you understand. I'm just asking you to say a few words, that's all."

"Jarvis," came U's voice, low and mournful and sad.

"I just want to rest, that's all. Really rest, just for a little while. It's all right—"

"Hey guys," Tony said from the doorway, much displeased with the way Jarvis started away from where he was kneeling in front of U with his hands on the boy's shoulders. U was drooping in a way he rarely did anymore, and when he saw Tony he padded over and buried his head in Tony's hip much the way DUM-E was wont to do when he was feeling overwhelmed. "What's going on here?" Tony asked, not bothering to keep the demanding tone out of his voice. Jarvis stood up slowly.

"U and I were just having a conversation, sir," he began, but even when he was just a voice in the wall Tony had always been able to tell when Jarvis wasn't telling him everything (he never lied outright, not to Tony, but he sometimes got it into his head that there were things Tony didn't need to know) and he was doing it right now.

"U, go find your brother. Get Uncle Clint to tell you circus stories or something, I need to have a chat with Jarvis."

U nudged his head against Tony's leg once, and then reached out to Jarvis and murmured something that did not contain words. Then he left, head bowed. Tony shut the door behind him.

U's room was decorated like a fairly typical little boy's room, except that the shelves were filled with technical manuals as well as children's stories, and the posters on the walls were of schematics, and there was a child-sized drafting table in the corner. There was also, looking exactly like the afterthought it was, a large stereo system that Tony had given U to play his Kidman Choir CD on. Happy had given it to him, earning himself the first hug U had ever given someone who wasn't Tony. Happy had flushed and grinned and pretended that his heart hadn't just been totally stolen away. Jarvis was toying with a stuffed robot that U had never touched, but when Tony crossed his arms over his chest he set it back down and faced his creator with a deceptively placid countenance.

"What were you asking U to do?" Tony demanded calmly. Jarvis was hiding behind his butler façade, one he seemed to have fallen into naturally upon waking up as a human, but Tony could outlast anyone in a staring contest when he knew he was right, and he kept hold of Jarvis' gaze. The man across from him did not answer for a long time, and when he did it was prefaced by a deep sigh.

"I was asking him to say the override code for emergency shutdown," he said, and Tony's entire body _prickled_.

"You were trying to make him _kill_ you?" he whispered coldly, fury coursing through his body and igniting at his fingertips, flushing his face and making his eyes spark. Jarvis made an abortive gesture, apologetic, "No, sir, not kill—"

"Jarvis, I have no way to bring you back from that now. If you went into emergency shutdown there would be no guarantee you'd come out of it. Ever. You _know_ that."

His voice was carefully level, barely a note or two lower than normal. He had not yet blinked. Jarvis bowed his shoulders and sat down on the bed.

"I can no longer bear it, sir," he said in a small voice. "I feel… trapped. Dirty. I can never seem to get clean. There's so little stimulation compared to what I'm used to and yet at the same there's so much more and it's driving me mad. My skin is too tight, I—I can't…"

"We will talk," Tony promised. "But not right now. I am way too furious with you right now. Stay here."

He left without looking back, movements tight, rigid, face a mask. Once in the living room he sat mechanically down on a chair and said in a monotone to Steve, "Go look in on Jarvis, will you? He's in Davie's room. Don't let him out of your sight."

He didn't notice when Steve left, didn't notice when Clint got up too, when Bruce excused himself, didn't notice anything until DUM-E and U plucked lightly at his clothes and he looked up to find them standing next to each other, bodies pressed together for comfort. Human comfort. He wanted to cry, but instead he put his hands on U's shoulders and looked him in the eye.

"Jarvis should not have asked that of you. That was not fair."

U put his hands on top of Tony's and squeezed them lightly. Tony gave him a tight smile and turned to DUM-E.

"Thanks for coming to get me, kiddo. That was good."

DUM-E beeped mournfully and nudged up against Tony with a little more force than before, and Tony laughed and gathered them both up in his arms, heedless of the tangle of limbs.

"I love you guys so much," he said, and then realized it was the first time he'd ever said that to them. He felt like crying again, but instead he scooped them both up and stood, ignoring the way his knees protested, and carried them to the kitchen for some ice cream. Jarvis could wait. He pushed that thought to the back of his mind and set about being a better father than his own. His sons would never wonder, never have mere fragments of him that cut as much as they healed. He would be _better_. He thought it fiercely, scooping ice cream, and the promise tattooed itself across his mind.

* * *

"Jarvis called me."

It was Pepper's voice on the line, and hearing it was a physical pain, but he smiled even though she'd always been able to see right through those, except when she said that even the fake smile slipped off his face.

"Did he," he said, voice flat.

"Tony, why aren't you talking to him?" Pepper demanded, as though the reason they weren't having this conversation in person had been set aside and didn't matter for the moment. Maybe it didn't.

"He tried to get U to help him commit suicide. I have nothing to say to him."

He had plenty of things to say to Jarvis, but nothing that wouldn't harm much more than it would help. He was still far too angry. Pepper was silent for a moment.

"He asked me to come back early," she said in a low voice.

"Do what you want," Tony snapped back, and then regretted it. "Pep, I'm sorry, I shouldn't be taking this out on you. Come back early if you want to."

She was silent again, and then said, "I heard about the charity ball."

"Yeah, I think it's gonna be a while before we try that again."

"Mostly I heard it was a success. Everyone figured they were just overtired."

"They were. They had their first fight in the limo after."

"_Oh_…" Pepper breathed, almost more like an 'aw,' and Tony could hear the smile in her voice. "Did they make up?"

"Yeah, they did."

Silence, an awkward silence where Tony wanted to demand that Pepper stop toying with him, but he kept his mouth shut.

"I want to come home, Tony," she said finally. "Not just for Jarvis, but for the boys. For you. I want to do this. You guys are all I have, and it's not fair to let my… insecurities get in the way of the best thing that's ever happened to me. I can't promise I'll be a great mother, but… if you're willing to let me, I'm… willing to try."

Tony closed his eyes and let out a breath he'd been holding for a week and a half.

"Come home, Pep," he whispered across the ocean. "Come on home."

* * *

Pepper spent an hour talking to Jarvis, and when she emerged she went straight for the kitchen and pulled out several different kinds of ice cream and the rest of the chocolate cake as well as plates and utensils and, balancing it all skillfully, made her way back downstairs with the air of a woman on a mission. Tony wondered if that was how she looked when she braced herself to go deal with him. She spent another hour and a half after that, and when she emerged again it was to beckon Steve to her. He came up a minute later with Jarvis in his arms, fast asleep, long legs dangling almost down to Steve's knees. Tony blinked and ran a hand down his face, and put an arm around Pepper when she fitted herself against his side.

"Is he…"

"I think he'll be okay," she said, and he squeezed her tight, glad, _so _glad that she was back, that she was on his side again. There would never be another Pepper, could never be. She bridged the gap between his old life and his new, and the only other person who could claim that was Rhodey, and he just wasn't that pretty. Tony knew that if Pepper were to leave he would still be able to function, but there were men out there who had lost both their legs who could say the same. Losing Pepper wouldn't be like losing his heart, because he'd gone there, thank you, and it wasn't something you survived. But it'd be something like losing both his legs. You could survive it, but you'd never be the same and you'd never forget what had happened to you.

"We should probably get him into therapy, though."

"With who?" Tony asked despairingly, because he'd thought of that, okay, but there was no one, and wasn't that part of the problem?

"Clint says SHIELD has mental health professionals on its payroll."

"They do?" This, this was why Pepper was perfect, she knew everyone and could get them to do anything, which was probably why she put up with Tony so well, even though he pushed her boundaries more than anyone else could. He wasn't so sure about handing Jarvis over to SHIELD even for a little bit, but Pepper always thought of everything so he knew he didn't need to worry overmuch about that.

"I'll talk to them in the morning," she said, looking up at him through her eyelashes seductively, and Tony Stark was not a man who couldn't read a room.

"In the morning," he murmured against her lips.

In the morning things would change again, in the morning would be talking and doing and growing, in the morning they would be a family of four, but right now it was just the two of them again, and while it was bittersweet because of all that other stuff, Tony had tasted enough of the bittersweet to be grateful that there was sweetness in it at all.

He took her to bed and into his life and breathed in the solid sweetness of her and felt like his feet weren't dropping out from under him anymore.

* * *

"It was," David said, shifting in his chair for the first time since the interview began, "It was like…"

Miss Preston held her breath in the chair on the other side of the small studio, acutely aware that this interview was unprecedented in more ways than one. Neither of the Stark boys (they would be boys to the public for some time yet, despite both being of legal age) had given a personal interview since the death of their father, and David, usually the more eloquent of the two, was suddenly at a loss for words.

"It was like being born," he said, and from her vantage point Miss Preston could see Mrs. Stark-Potts put a hand to her breast and smile.


End file.
